Planet: Critical

Humankind’s footprint threatens to squash life under its heel.

Our impact on the planet cannot be understated. We have thrust Earth into a new geological period, destroyed the majority of the world’s wildlife, razed her forests, and rendered innumerable species extinct. We are expert consumers with no limits to our appetite, it seems. Unless the climate becomes so unstable our own systems break down. This, of course, is what we’re already seeing.

Bill Rees, bio-ecologist, ecological economist, and originator of the ecological footprint analysis, joins me to discuss this breakdown—how we got here, where we’re going, and why he has little hope for humankind to make it through. We discuss systems change, potential outcomes, and how to create “lifeboats” in a crisis. We also go head-to-head on the framing of some of these issues before finding common ground towards the end of the episode.

“Half of the fossil fuels ever used on planet Earth by human beings has been consumed in just the last 35 years. This is the power of exponential growth. So hugely important things have happened in 50 years, including the first book that warned us of limits to growth. We've seen the evidence before the US Congress on Climate Change. We've had 27 COP meetings on climate change, a half a dozen formal agreements to reduce carbon emissions. There's been several formal scientists’ warning to humanities. This has all taken place in the last 50 years.

“Yet, during that past 50 years, the pace of negative change has accelerated. So, despite the best of our science, despite the best evidence you can possibly come up with in terms of climate activity and so on and so forth, the mainstream has not budged.”

Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.

“There isn't likely to be a future where all critters have no interest in themselves and are only interested in the collective. That's not gonna work. But to temper those two directions so that there is self maintenance, but also a self that joins the community, is, I would say, the goal.”

What if religion wasn’t about God—but about each other?

Religion is a divisive topic at best and the cause of war at worst. It has been used to control, dictate, punish and destroy people throughout the ages. Yet faith, it seems, is a critical aid in humankind’s individual and collective existence. I have always believed that faith is an act of imagination where religion is an act of dogma. That’s why I was curious when Ursula Goodenough, Professor of Biology Emeritus, emailed me a copy of her book, The Sacred Depths of Nature, suggesting we discuss “religious naturalism”.

During the episode, Ursula introduces the topic as a grand story to unite humankind. We go on to discuss humankind as a symbolic species, the necessity and beauty of symbolism, how we evolve with symbolism, and how we can use story to anchor our existence. We discuss language and mindedness, consciousness and the brain, community and individuals, and the relationship between mystery and knowledge. Ursula also gives her insight into what separates religiosity, spirituality and religion.

© Rachel Donald

Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.

Ecuadorians have just approved a referendum to halt oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, which will prohibit further oil extraction. The "yes" vote effectively keeps its oil in the ground, so for the details we check in with staff writer Max Radwin who covered the news for Mongabay.

Related to that is a recent legal victory in Ecuador's Andean region, another massively biodiverse area – not only in that country but for the entire planet – so we're re-sharing a discussion with associate digital editor Romi Castagnino that aired after the winning decision for Indigenous and local communities, whose rights to prior consultation and the 'rights of nature' were both upheld.

You can read more about both stories and watch the video report mentioned by Romi at these links:

Ecuador referendum halts oil extraction in Yasuní National Park

Ecuador court upholds ‘rights of nature,’ blocks Intag Valley copper mine

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Image caption: Indigenous activist Nemonte Nenquimo stands alongside an oil spill near Shushufindi in the province of Sucumbíos, Ecuadorian Amazon, June 26th 2023. Image by Sophie Pinchetti / Amazon Frontlines.

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Human population is a problem—tackling it through education isn’t.

We need to slow our global fertility rate to 1.5 children per woman if we’re to lower our population to a sustainable level of around 3 billion. That decline is already happening in many post-industrial nations, to the chagrin and panic of their leaders. However, many cultures around the world still prize large families. But in a world of increasingly scarce resources like water, limiting family sizes remains the main driver of some campaigners, including Bill Ryerson.

Bill is an ecologist and founder of the Population Media Center, an initiative which creates mainstream entertainment in many nations around the world, pushing the needle on cultural practices to drive behaviour change on population and even gender violence. PMC produces telenovelas and radionovelas which have seen fertility rates decline in nations they’ve been shown.

Bill and I spend the first half of the episode talking about the population problem, the policy problems, the history of population growth. He then introduces the concept of the demographic dividend, which showed that small families actually lead to economic growth, before explaining the successes and heartwarming stories of the work PMC has done around the world.

Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.

It’s so much more than “climate change”.

The most biodiverse regions of the world are under threat. Beyond the models, the data, the papers and the Twitter spats, the world’s ecosystems are collapsing under the pressure of mankind’s interference, extraction and exploitation. The Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, has been mined, plumbed and sawed for its resources to the extent it may soon become a carbon emitter as its systems begin to decay. Protecting it is vital in the fight against our own destruction. Paul Rosolie set out to do just that when he was 18 years old.

Paul is a conservationist, writer, speaker, filmmaker, protecting 55000+ acres of Amazonian habitat and wildlife Director of JungleKeepers and Tamandua Expeditions. His memoir, Mother of God, documents his years spent deep in the jungle fighting to save it. Paul joins me to discuss this and more. He reveals the gifts of the Amazon and the lessons to be learned from its inhabitants. He also explains the limitations of typical conservation efforts due to the pressures of our globalised financial system. Finally, he gives a vision for what conservation could be in the future—and a call to action for those who understand the depth of the emergency.

Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.

Tim Killeen is a top conservation biologist and author whose book is a straight-shooting, non-naive dive into "everything you need to know about the Amazon if you want to save it," he says on this episode.

With 30 years of experience living in the Amazon, his wealth of knowledge springs from having guided the first environmental impact study there, pioneering satellite mapping of deforestation with NASA, and traveling extensively throughout the region, so Killeen has unique insight into the drivers of – and solutions for – Amazon deforestation.

On this episode he shares key insights from the second edition of his book "A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness," plus what gives him hope, and his advice for up-and-coming conservationists.

Mongabay is releasing the book's new edition in short installments in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, find the first two chapters published so far, here:

1. The state of the Amazon: Chapter 1 of “A Perfect Storm”

2. Infrastructure defines the future: Chapter 2 of “A Perfect Storm in the Amazon”

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Image caption: Rainstorm in the Amazon. Pillcopata, Villa Carmen, Peru. Image by Rhett Butler.

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“The ways in which we really value property, that to me is an extremely infinite growth capitalism, hyper-masculine and extractive and colonialist thought — this idea that property is as important as like the lives and comfort and kindness that we show people. We must show that same love and kindness and respect to property.

And so in that way, I think that we could redefine nonviolence to include property destruction, destruction of specific property, which is essentially doing violence upon future generations or present generations of people in the global south.”

Are we really going to protect private property at all costs?

That’s the question myself and Rose Abramoff, an earth scientist and activist, circle around this week. We live in a violent world, one in which profiteering infrastructure kills, millions, threatens billions, and is tipping our planet over the edge. In the face of such violence, would sabotaging fossil fuel infrastructure really be an equivalent act of violence? Or would it be a necessary act of sabotage to protect life on earth?

Rose is one of the first earth scientists to be fired for protesting against the climate crisis. We discuss the reality of the emergency, how to view taking action as a science experiment, the different kinds of action around the world, and the ethics of property destruction.

Rose began her career as a forest ecologist and now studies the effect of climate change and land use change on the land carbon cycle, with a focus on plants and soil. As an activist, she works on a variety of environmental justice issues with Scientist Rebellion and other groups. She has engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience targeting colonial resource extraction, luxury emissions, and fossil fuel expansion and funding. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram and Mastodon at @ultracricket

© Rachel Donald

Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.

“If you think about how you might get out of this and get to something better, what really matters is the distribution of resources. Who has what? Who holds the wealth? And what are they doing with it? Government borrowing and quantitative easing, this sort of thing, can change some of that, but really when you get down to it, you're going to have to think about how you're going to tax some of that wealth because you need to shift actual resources around. The most effective mechanism we have for doing that is taxation.”

Economics is a pretty bizarre field: A social science masquerading as an actual science, economics inflexibly dictates life, relationships, election manifestos and policy despite none of it being set in stone. The beauty of economics is we can radically overhaul our economic systems and institutions to better serve us, rather than being prey to the outputs of a haggard and worn out system. Such a realisation is, though, beyond the imagination of most economic leaders.

But there are economists out there working to debunk the myths, cut through the noise, and creating policies which would serve both people and planet. James Meadway—former treasury advisor, member of the Progressive Economy Forum council, and the host of the Macrodose podcast—is one of them. He joins me to discuss the emergency and long-term policies we should implement to navigate the climate crisis, the economic crisis, and to radically overhaul and transition our societies to those which support life over productivity. We discuss some alternative frameworks that are being researched around the world, including de-growth and modern monetary theory, whilst James insists that which needs to be re-evaluated is value itself.

Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.

Conservation technology such as drones, remote sensing, and machine learning plays a critical role in supporting conservation scientists and aiding policymakers in making well-informed decisions for biodiversity protection. Recognizing this, the XPRIZE Foundation initiated a five-year competition with the goal of developing automated and accelerated methods for assessing rainforest biodiversity.

In this episode of the Newscast, Mongabay staff writer Abhishyant Kidangoor interviews Peter Houlihan, the executive vice president of biodiversity and conservation at the XPRIZE Foundation during the semi-finals in Singapore. The foundation recently revealed the six finalists that will compete next year. Houlihan discusses the importance of the collaborative nature of the competition, and why he believes it has become a movement.

Related reading: 

Competing for rainforest conservation: Q&A with XPRIZE’s Kevin Marriott

Meet the tech projects competing for a $10m prize to save rainforests

Please invite your friends to subscribe to the Mongabay Newscast wherever they get podcasts, from Apple to Spotify, or download our free app in the Apple App Store or in the Google Store to get access to our latest episodes at your fingertips.

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Image caption: An extendable arm attached to a drone was used to deploy the platform on top of the canopy. Team Waponi. Photo by Abhishyant Kidangoor.

Please share your thoughts and feedback! [email protected].

What to do when words get in the way?

We see the world through language, reality shaped by the words we use to signify concepts, systems, relationships and even knowledge. This surreal layer over the world then becomes more true to us than reality itself, shaping desire, hatred, ideology and conviction. Yet, we have evolved with language, we need it to make sense of the experience of being human. So, how do we reimagine our relationship to language so it may reveal the real instead of hide it?

This is what Ray Ison and I discuss in today’s wonderful episode. Ray is a Professor in Systems at the Open University who has been investigating systems and language for decades. We discuss relational dynamics, metaphor theory, knowledge creation, governance, meaning and obfuscation.

Ray also explains other forms of signification and communication being explored in the systems community, and how we can participate with language to deframe the world as we see it and reveal its true complexities.

Planet: Critical investigates why the world is in crisis—and what to do about it. Support the project with a paid subscription.